December 28, 2011

What do you think of this card? I absolutely adore it!! I was inspired by Julie Ebersole’s creation – I’ve forgotten the card that inspired me but I do remember she did something similar.

I sponged Broken China using a template on a CS base. To create the template - I cut a CS 4.25” X 5.5” in size and then cut a square inside it. Put the template on top of your card and sponge inside the square. Stamped the flower onto a white CS. Colored with prismacolor pencils and cut it out. Adhered it to the CS using dimensionals. Added some glitter to the center of the flower. Curved the sentiment while sticking to the acrylic block and stamped it on the card.

December 22, 2011

I know I know it’s the Christmas season so what am I doing changing everybody’s mood to Thanksgiving (as if I can?!?) Well I never got around to sharing any of the thanksgiving cards I made at the right time. So if you want to pick pace for your Thanksgiving cards next year, here’s some inspiration!

I bought this set, Bountiful Blessings, by There She Goes and I must say it’s probably the best stamp set for thanksgiving – at least the best that I know of. The images are so detailed and they stamp just perfect! I was overjoyed with the stamp set!! I had so much fun coloring these images and this is the stamp set that made me realize that what drew me to card making was the coloring; and for some reason lately I hadn’t done a lot of it. Coloring is so soothing – it almost takes me to another world. Time to buy some images which can be colored! LOL – why does anything and everything lead to extending the shopping list!

So here are all my cards with this set. I just wish the sentiments on this set were a little bigger.

I cut give using my Cricut and Vladimir font. Sponged the edges with Walnut Stain. The “thanks” is from a hero Arts set “Frames and messages”.

December 13, 2011

I hand drew the frame and the black strings and also tried a little rock-n-roll technique here. If you look closely at the green ornaments they’re shaded with dark green ink.

Stamps: Hero Arts Swirl Christmas, PTI Holiday Blessings

Paper: PTI White

Others: Versacolor inks, rhinestone, black pen

The tree was cut using SCAL and Cricut. Then I stamped it in two colors; first stamping the bands with light color and then with dark color. Scored the frame using a scoring blade. Stamped the sentiment on a strip of red CS. The tree is covered all over with diamond stickles. Added colored rhinestones to the tree.

December 9, 2011

I tried to create the outline for the images in SCAL but didn’t get really good results. Anyways, I cut the above images using SCAL and cricut and then stamped them with versamark. The black string is hand drawn. Background is stamped with swirl in versamark.

Stamps: Hero Arts Swirl Christmas, PTI Holiday Blessings

Paper: PTI Kraft, Poppy red and Bazzill green

Others: Versamark, Memento black ink

The labels were cut using SCAL and Cricut. The stars and sentiment were stamped in versamark and embossed with gold embossing powder.

Stamps: Hero Arts Swirl Christmas, PTI Holiday Blessings

Paper: PTI Poppy red and pine feather

Others: Versamark, gold embossing powder

Stamped the tree on Simply Chartreuse and cut the image. Hand drew the snow outline on a white CS and cut it out. Sponged the edges with Broken China distress ink.

December 6, 2011

November was extremely busy with the craft fairs and then a thanksgiving trip to visit the family! So I haven’t updated the blog for quite some time. Since there are lots of things to share, I’m going to post them in batches starting with the christmas cards.

All these cards have been made using the Cricut cartridge Christmas Solutions.

The house is cut at 3” and the trees at 5”.

The santa claus and reindeers is cut at 2.25”. Moon is also part of the same image.

Stamps: sentiments are from PTI Holiday blessings and the star in the above card is from Hero Arts Swirl Christmas.

October 6, 2011

What could be more feminine than laces and pearls?!?! I just love adding pearls to cards – and I so not like adding them to myself! Left to myself all my cards would be loaded with pearls. So I was doing a happy dance when I figured that it was time to make an out and out girly card. That meant I could go crazy with my pearls! Like all CAS cards, this was a quickie to make but it took a long time to design it! I’m so happy with how it turned out!

I stamped the doilies in Camelia and Violet. Printed the sentiment using the computer – yes *after* stamping it Then added liquid pearls to center of red doilies and adhesive pearls to the center of violet doilies. That’s it – TA DA!

Oh and I’m deep down into making stuff for my holiday craft fairs. So I figured I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rhythm of Simply Sketches. Instead for every card I post I’ll post the corresponding sketch.

September 29, 2011

I made these pouches for Gauri puja, a festival in which we give some gift to married women. I’m always more excited about how to package the stuff than the stuff itself. In fact I first decide what kind of packaging I’ll make and then buy stuff to fit that

To add a little papercrafting touch, I used Justrite monogram stamps to create the scalloped monogrammed circle and attached it to the zipper. The beauty of it all was that I made these with fabric that I already had and didn’t have to buy anything new except the zippers!

I got the tutorial for the pouch from here. The instructions are very clear and the pouches are quite straightforward.

September 12, 2011

I really like the sketch for this week – it turned out to be so different! Here’s my sample:

I stamped the card base with Polka Dots stamp in black. Rounded two opposite corners of the card base. Cut a circle using nestabilities and stamped the sentiment on it. Stamped the flower twice each on Berry Sorbet and plum pudding. Colored them with Prismacolor pencils. Adhered the circle to the center of the card base and the flowers on top of the circle. Mounted two of the flowers on pop dots. Simple!

August 29, 2011

I think I’ve collected enough evidence to prove that the simpler the card the more time it takes for me to design it! For this card I knew the elements I wanted to use- a bird holding a note; I wanted it to be suitable for the men in our life and I wanted it to be as white as possible. Well I guess I put just too many restrictions on one little card! I think (gasp! after two days of designing it *all* I can say is think) I like the way it turned out…

I stamped the bird with brilliance black ink on white CS. Colored it with Prismacolor pencils. Filled up the gaps in black ink with a black marker – so that the black in the image was rich. Printed the sentiment on white CS using my computer. Cut it out and adhered to the card base. Popped up the bird on foam dots and glued the beak to the note so that it looked like the bird was carrying the note in its beak.

August 24, 2011

Some of you had asked me to compile all my sketches in one document and am happy to say that I finally got a chance to do that! If you look at the right side bar, under the section “Shortcuts” there’s a link to Simply Sketches Sketchbook. I’ll try to update it now and then. Please let me know if you have any issues accessing/viewing it.

August 15, 2011

This week’s sketch is super simple and hope you love it as much as I do!

I realized that I neither have any manly card nor any general occasion like all the best, farewell, etc in my stash. Thus whenever a non-birthday occasion comes up and I want a card – there’s none! So I’m going to try make cards to fill those needs. It’s so so so hard to make a masculine card!!! I find it so much easier to make a girly one – coz I love to add glitter, pearls and flowers! You can imagine how hard my life’s going to be for the next few days/months/etc – however long it takes to add variety to my pile!

I was at a loss of ideas for manly cards so I decided to take some inspiration from a photo.

Argyle is my favorite!! My DH says that I’m a walking advertisement for Argyle! And nothing says a man better than a nice argyle pattern! So there I’d my design! I *love* how my card turned out!!

I cut the diamonds using Cricut and SCAL. It’s probably not easily visible but the diamonds in between blue and green is cut from Soft Stone CS. Are you wondering how I made all those lines? I hand dotted that line! Yes, unbelievable but I did and it’s so totally worth it looking at the card. Maybe I could’ve made my work easier by drawing a solid line instead of a dotted one but you know what – I don’t think it would’ve been the same! Then I cut the happy using the vladimir script just like here and used the “for you” part of a sentiment from the “Cuckoo” Hero Arts stamp set on vellum. Attached the vellum to the card base using brads.

August 11, 2011

I’d been long wanting to make a tablecloth and placemat set – mainly because you get many choices of colors and patterns. The readymade ones are so limited in those terms. Especially the patterns. They just don’t appeal to me. I’d promised my DH quite sometime back that I would make one but wasn’t getting time to start this project. Ultimately I decided that I just had to do it. So here it is:

The tablecloth is made from Amy Butler’s Love collection – I bought the home décor cloth. It’s a little heavier than the regular cloth and I like it for a tablecloth – gives it a fall. I made the tablemats from double sided quilted cloth that I bought from Joann. I bound it using bias tape. Doesn’t it look beautiful?!?!? I was lucky in that I got the perfect color for the mats – there are very few color choices in double sided quilted cloths. As you can see I made 4 placemats and for the center I made kind of like potholders. I absolutely love how it looks!

August 5, 2011

This shape card was on my list for a long time. Finally it made it’s way to the top, pushing others!

I took a picture from the web and created my SVG. I love creating these one of a kind SVGs and cutting with my Cricut!

The card was cut at 5.5 inch width. Cut all the circles. Then marked A, B, X and Y on the colored ones with sharpies. I kept referencing the actual picture to make sure it was as close to the original as possible. I tried some color pencil shading to make it more natural but alas my shading isn’t all that great so I backed off. I cut the sentiment in Century Gothic font.

August 1, 2011

Winner of Simply Sketches #8 is Neha! Congratulations Neha! Your glitters will be on the way to you very soon!

Sketch for this week:

Why do simple cards take soooo long?!?!? It took me one ruined card and some more minutes to reach to this card! It looks so much better IRL. I especially like the way “you” came out. I looked for fonts and fonts and more fonts till I was satisfied with this! Since I’d seen the Papertrey dies for Wonderful words I ‘d been planning to try out something similar with my Cricut! Love how it turned out!

I embossed the circle using the Nestabilities Circle die. Masked the circle using a die-cut and stamped the polka dot background (had to use my new stamp !) with versamark. Using the negative mask I stamped the flowers and leaves. Cut out “you” on Cricut. I used the Vladimir font. Stamped the sentiment in black.

Stamps: Hero Arts Blossom Art, Hero Arts Frames and messages

Paper: Papertrey Spring Moss, Enchanted evening

Others': Versacolor inks, Versamark, Cricut, SCAL

If you use the sketch to make a card, please leave me a link and I would love to see your creation!

July 18, 2011

4. Neha

Congratulations Neha!! Please send me your address and I’ll have the glitter in the mail for you!

Coming to this week’s sketch:

and my sample:

The image is stamped in Brilliance black and colored with Prismacolor pencils and OMS. Adhered the trims to Lavender moon CS and stamped the sentiment in Brilliance black. Glued the image to the card base using pop dots and covered it with glitter! Easy-peasy!

The giveaway for this time: 3 vials of Martha Stewart Tinsel Glitter!

Rules for the giveaway:

Create a card using the sketch above and post it on your blog/gallery between July 18-30. Yes you have almost two weeks!

In your blog/gallery post, provide a link to this blog post.

Add a link to your post (not to your gallery/blog but the exact post) in Mr Linky.

July 4, 2011

Here’s the 7th sketch in the simply sketches series! I’m having a lot of fun designing these sketches – they prevent me from getting into a rut! Without these I’m sure I would be following the same sketch for weeks. It’s like that for me. Once I like a particular sketch or color combo I keep using that again and again and again… Anyway coming down to the sketch, here it is:
and my sample…
Apart from the change in sketches I’m also making myself use new colors. So I decided that come what may I’m going to use the green CS. Trust me it was SO hard to figure out what colors would go with it and how to make it alive.
I created the border template in SCAL and cut it with my cricut using Ocean Tides CS. Stamped the small doilies in palette black on it. Cut circles with SCAL and Cricut using Terracota tile CS. Stamped the medium doilies on it with Versamark and embossed in white embossing powder. Adhered them to the border using foam dots. Scored two lines towards the bottom of the card base and a little above. Stamped the flourish using Versamark. Adhered the border to the card base. Stamped the sentiment in Brilliance black. Adhered rhinestones to the center of the doilies.Tips:

I found that with detailed images like the small doilies palette black works better than Brilliance black. The latter being too juicy obscures the details.

I didn’t have the matching rhinestones so I colored them using sharpies in orange and dark green and voila! I had matching rhinestones!

June 27, 2011

This sketch came to me by total serendipity and my sample made me very happy!

To be honest I prepared the inner panel and was going to stick it parallel to the base. I simply laid the panel on top of the base diagonally while I prepared to glue them together and I realized that it looked better than in parallel!

I cut the burgundy CS 4.25 X 5.5 inches. Stamped the flowers in versamark. Embossed them with white embossing powder. Colored them with prismacolor pencils. Colored the centers with white gel pen. Adhered a pearl on the centers and embellised the petal with Stardust stickles. Put the burgundy CS on the base diagonally. Glued them and then cut off the burgundy CS that was sticking out.

June 20, 2011

Note: There were some issues with the scheduler in blogger (yet again!) so this post is late.

Onto the 5th sketch in this series!

Here’s my sample. It looks as if I also got inspired by the colors of the sketch but that’s not so I seem to get in a color rut – once I pick a color, I just can’t seem to get out of it. That seemed to be true of Hawaiian Shores! So I figured I would pick something radically different. There were so many colors in my stash which haven’t seen the light of the day but I was a little partial to the orange

I cut out the label using cricut and SCAL. The SVG file is from Penny Duncan Creations. Stamped the clock and the sentiment in Brilliance black. Covered the clock face with glossy accents.

June 16, 2011

This cupcake template has been sitting on my hard disk for a long time. I’d created it long back but wasn’t getting the time to use it.

Except for the cherry, all the cuts were made using Cricut and SCAL. I cut the cupcake base at 4.25 inches. Then cut the wrapper and the icing appropriately. The cherry was die cut using circle nestabilities. For the sentiment, I cut out cream CS, attached it to printer paper and then printed the sentiment on it using a computer and a printer. Then glued it using foam dots. The icing was outlined with diamond stickles glitter and the cherry was “glazed” with glossy accents.

June 13, 2011

I’m so glad that I started doing these sketches – it challenges me to think differently every time and come up with new layouts!

Here’s the new sketch – simple and sweet!

and my sample – it came out just like I’d envisioned, if not better! I love when that happens

I cut out 1.75 inches wide strips from Hawaiian Shores, Simply Chartreuse (unknowingly it turns out this is my go-to color!), Lemon tart and Summer Sunrise. Punched them using Doily lace punch. Glued them to the card base. Tied a ribbon on top of Hawaiian shores. Dotted the centers of the punched strips with liquid pearls. Stamped the sentiment in Brilliance black.

If you make a card using this sketch, I would love to see it! So please do leave me a comment with the link. Thank you!

June 6, 2011

Sorry for the delay in posting the next round of Simply Sketches. There were just too many things going on at my end.

Here’s the new sketch – simple!

It wasn’t as simple as this when it started. It took me almost an hour to figure out what stamp and layout I wanted to go with. Has it ever happened to you that the stamp that you pre-determined the stamp that you wanted to use but not a single layout nor the colors that come to your mind are suitable for that stamp?!?! They fit every other stamp except the one that you want! Exactly that happened to me and the tussle went on for an hour till I gave up and changed the stamp!

This is my sample:

I stamped the flower and the leaf with Versamark on Raspberry pink and Simply Chartreuse. Then heat embossed them in white. Cut them out. Adhered them to the card. I cut out the center pink oval from the bottom pink flower – since it would anyway not be visible! Dotted the stamen with liquid pearls. Stamped the sentiment in versamark and embossed it with clear embossing powder.

Free SCUT/SVG files

Every project where I use SVG or SCUT files created by me, I also add a download link for these files. These files are for personal use only. Please do not sell or distribute these files. I would be very honored if you link back to my blog for credit/download information, where possible.